"It didn't do the English Lighthouse Service much good," said his friend. "What do you suppose the good people of Devonshire did? They set to work and hunted for weeks to try to find the hole, but it was so small that they failed. At last, having made up their minds that the Wolf Rock should cease to give its warning, they combined together and carted boulders from the beach to the top of the rock, with incredible labor, and after a month's hard work filled up the entire lower part of the chasm and then shoveled small stones on top."
"And thus silenced the wolf's howl?"
"Very nearly. If you stand on Wolf Rock now, you can still hear a low moaning sound as the tide comes in, but it's very faint. So far as a warning is concerned, the wolf is chained forever."
"And did the people profit by it, sir?"
"Within three months from the time of the silencing of the wolf, over thirty vessels crashed to pieces on the rocks around, and the people of the villages were made rich by the wreckage of the cargoes that came floating in, or by the plunder they took from the vessels which held together after the storm had passed."
"And those who were drowned?"
"They were drowned, that was all," the other said. "Of course if any survivors were washed ashore, the coast folk treated them very kindly."
"I don't suppose," Eric remarked, "that they ever told these survivors that they had done their best to make them the victims of the hungry sea?"
"Hardly! You've got to remember that people often have queer local ways. There are superstitions you can't defend on any ground. You know, at one time, it was considered bad luck to try to save any one who had been partly drowned. There are plenty of people, even nowadays, who won't cut down a would-be suicide who has hanged himself because they think it's bad luck.
"So far as the sea and sailors are concerned, I believe there's more humanity than on land. It's very rarely that you ever hear of a vessel that has refused to go to another's assistance. I think, too, the whole work of the Coast Guard is a standing example of the modern idea that nothing is more important than the saving of life."